Rupert Murdoch is all over Twitter. (“My family are horrified that I’m on it,” he says.) But in agreeing to sit down for a broad interview with Fortune, one of the media industry’s most powerful moguls signals that he’s finally ready to return in a serious way to the public stage that he has largely abandoned as he grappled with his UK hacking scandals and a bitter divorce, as well as uncertainty about the prospects for his media empire — which he split into two companies last year — and his succession plans. You should check out the piece by senior editor-at-large Pattie Sellers. Here are a few of the highlights:

Succession: His sons James and Lachlan are first in line to take over although “I’m going to be here for a long time. And so will [Fox COO] Chase Carey and [News Corp CEO] Robert Thomson.” The effort to bring Lachlan back intensified after a private meeting with James at last year’s Allen & Co confab in Sun Valley. “We had two or three hours together. Lachlan was not not going to come back. It was a question of how we would work together.”

Recent Comments

Right on. We have an Australian running this country, or trying to at least, by influencing the...

D.Z.

11 months

"Palling around with Hillary?" Um, if you think Hillary's a lefty, I have a bridge to sell...

candypants

11 months

You are spot-on. It makes me wonder if his daughter Liz is the only one born with...

Daughter Liz Murdoch’s decision not to join the News Corp board: Rupert says he’d “rather not go into that.” A lot of close families “have good arguments. That doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.” And it’s “more than possible” that she’ll return to the family business.

Who’ll be the GOP’s 2016 presidential candidate: Murdoch says former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is “my number one” calling him “a man of very fine character.” He also has “particular admiration” for Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie “could recover” from inquiries into his possible role in manufactured traffic jams at the George Washington Bridge. Murdoch agrees with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on “a great number of things” but disagrees on foreign policy “too strongly perhaps to vote for him.”

His view of Hillary Clinton: He left open the possibility of supporting her but “it would depend on the Republican candidate totally.” He adds that he “could live with Hillary as President. We have to live with who we get. We don’t have any choice.”

The political impact of Fox News: Murdoch says the view that the channel has promoted the Tea Party is “bullshit” and denies that Fox News helped to marginalize the Republican party. “I think it has absolutely saved it. It has certainly given voice and hope to people who didn’t like all that liberal championing thrown at them on CNN.”

Fox Sports 1: The pay TV channel will “lose a couple hundred million dollars for a year or two” as he hopes to make it “a major alternative to ESPN” — which he calls “an even bigger gold mine than Fox News.”

Making movies in China: Fox is “going to try again.” It’s been a problem, though, because “it has been impossible to get American directors to go there….they want to censor every line in every movie, and they can take a month giving you a decision on one line.”

What went wrong at MySpace: That was “one of our great screwups of all time.” The problem was that “no one knew anything about it” and if his execs “weren’t happy with the people running it, they should have gone and hired [Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg or someone like him.” Zuckerberg wanted to combine his operation with MySpace and “I didn’t take him up on it. I think he’s done a brilliant job.”

How this guy is pegged as some sort of completely right-wing extremist CLEARLY has to read this piece!

Dear Mr. Murdoch:

In the future, please hire only flacks who can form complete sentences.

Thank you.

D.Z. • on Apr 10, 2014 7:46 am

“Palling around with Hillary?”

Um, if you think Hillary’s a lefty, I have a bridge to sell you.

Educated Mind • on Apr 10, 2014 7:46 am

Rupert Murdoch is an absolute mastermind. He understands the true power of the media, which is to send messages. He uses his vast media empire to tell people what to think, tell people how to think, tell people what issues to focus on, and most importantly to make people carry out actions on behalf of his agenda. He uses Fox News to promote the Western Military Industrial complex. He realizes that the Tea Party and Evangelicals are a mass of foolish sheep, and he uses them to trump for him, and stir up the pot. He could care LESS about abortion, or prayer in schools, but he stokes up those issues to keep the fools talking, and keep them marching to the beat of the military industrial complex.

He is praising Jeb Bush, because he worked hand in hand with H.W. Bush and Cheney. Whenever they had a problem with the “liberal media” they called “Rupert” to fix it. They know him on a first name basis, and they worked in concert with him at ALL times. Carl Rove would call him before an election began, Cheney called him before they went into Irag, and so it goes.

The fact that Murdoch did not even mention Marco Rubio as a potential candidate, means he is going to come after Rubio through the Fox News apparatus. He’s showing us his deck of cards right now. He wants to return the favor to the Bush family for their help throughout the years. In turn, The Bushes know that the only thing that can stop Marco Rubio is Scandal and vitriol coming from Fox News. The Bush family’s brand is tainted in America from brother “Dubya” (W), who was borderline mentally off. He was merely a set piece in the Oval Office and a stand in for presidential photographs. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld ran the whole country from behind the scenes.

candypants • on Apr 10, 2014 7:46 am

You are spot-on. It makes me wonder if his daughter Liz is the only one born with a conscience.

Sidney Phillips • on Apr 10, 2014 7:46 am

Right on. We have an Australian running this country, or trying to at least, by influencing the sheeple via Faux News’ lies and distortion. SMH.